Long Term Planning

Today is my last day before I begin my second year of teaching. It's a very bittersweet feeling; I know what is ahead of me and I am ready for the challenges, yet I am still clueless most of the time. To put this in "Olympic Perspective" - I finished the 50m breaststroke in mostly a doggy paddle, and I'm taking on the 100m butterfly. But I digress, this is suppose to be about food, not my obsession with Ryan Lochte.

I went grocery shopping yesterday and realized that I need to start packing school lunches. There is a certain quality of lunch:quality of day ratio I'd like to share with you. This theory started last year, when in the depths of despair sometime in mid October (I was eating carrots, yogurt, and a bagel for lunch), Alex shared with me the necessity of a good lunch. A good lunch makes a great day. A mediocre to bad lunch makes a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.

The key to a good lunch is planning. Well, also ignoring all of the "Ms. Woike WHAT IS THAT?!?" comments you hear at the table. Last year I did a pretty swell job of making sure I had left overs for lunch. However, I don't think this is enough planning. Sometimes I eat with friends and there are no leftovers, some nights I go to the Penguin for a soy dog, and some nights I just simply don't care for what I ate.

Now here's a side story: I am slightly obsessed with Molly Wizenberg's blog Orangette. All of her recipes are just so dang simple and look so dang terrific and 95% of the ones I have made have been just so dang amazing. The other 5% were my own dang fault. She has a flair for french cuisine. I'm not talking duck confit - I'm talking warm lentil salads, beet tarts, open faced scrambled egg sandwiches with leeks - rustic, yet delicious.

One of my favorite postings has her formula for lunch: Bread, Cheese, Soup/Vegetable, Fruit. Wonderfully simple, easy to plan, and 75% portable (as in, I can walk around the lunch room and reprimand the demons as they taunt one another with sporks, ketchup packets, and milk cartons). I love bread. I love cheese. I love soup/vegetables. I love fruit. I only worry about when my farmer's market closes, I will be out of luck. But I have an Earth Fare I am willing to investigate.

I don't know what made me think of all this this morning. Maybe it is the steady rain, the falling temperature, the eager dog, wanting to tear through the nice weather, but his reluctance to get wet (what a wimp). Or maybe it's the fact that I am faced with developing my first unit plan today, in addition to finishing my long term plans for the year. I'll start by planning my first lunch, and sharing my favorite Molly Wizenberg soup recipe. That is a start.

My First Lunch
Multi-grain Country loaf bread
Hummus (No cheese, but it is Morgan's hummus recipe)
Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Tomato


Chick Pea Tomato Soup with Fresh Rosemary
from Molly Wizenberg's blog Orangette

2 cans of chick peas (no need to be a purist and soak your own)
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, roughly 3 inches long
2 cans diced tomatoes (tricky here, use a 28 oz can and a 14.5 oz can)
a pinch of sugar
a pinch of salt
a pinch of black pepper
4 cups vegetable stock (if you make your own, props. if you use bouillon, I understand.)

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the garlic (peel, crushed, chopped) and the rosemary (needles removed from stems, rough chop). Heat for a minute, then add the tomatoes, sugar, salt, black pepper, half of the chickpeas (drained, of course), and the stock. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce and simmer for 20-25 minutes.

Remove the soup from the heat and cool for 4-5 minutes. Place in a blender (this is key in soups, as I mentioned before - food processors do not get the required texture for blended soups - use a blender!) and puree in batches, returning it to the pot. Add the additional chick peas, and bring soup to a warm temperature. Serves 6, or 4 hungry people.

Hosting: not for the faint at heart.

You know you've got it bad when the mere thought of making dinner for a crowd of people gives you that rush of giggles, kinda like a grade school kid on their birthday. Tonight my roommate and I are hosting a "community dinner" - TFA loves to force upon us these hosting opportunities for new corps members. But frankly, I don't mind the opportunity to force people to eat my food. After all, this is the South, and they have to be polite.

A year ago, I had to attend all of these awful dinners. Well, only two were awful. One dinner was hosted by a group of girls who were in the corps ahead of mine. Very nice, but very bland "mexican food." I felt bad for just not enjoying it. The second dinner took place at a ridiculous home in Old Money Charlotte. They served fajitas on a white table cloth. I am guilty for splattering a little on it. I also got stuck next to the matron of the home, which probably made it worse for me. Not to mention that they invited their awkward banking son, and hosted only females. He took time to speak to each one of us, almost as if we were auditioning to sit next to him for dinner. I felt weird all around.

My last dinner was at a lake house in South Carolina (which, is like, 10 minutes from Charlotte - but much like the Illinois side of the river: very dirty). The family made a veggie lasagna and a salad. Simple, but really good. Also, they were just good hosts. At the end of the meal, the husband and wife sat us all down around their fireplace and shared with us stories upon stories about life. I enjoyed myself immensely, despite the fact that I was in South Carolina.

So I am hosting. Well, my roommate and I are hosting together. But I am the one giddy about the meal. I've been flipping through books, blogs, and newspaper postings for weeks. The other day I suggested we discuss the menu, and she just gave me a look like I am a nut. But I was serious!

I have a problem remembering that not everyone enjoys food like I do. I see no problem with balsamic vinegar, black lentils, endives, etc. But I guess other people do. You can see the struggle - I want to make something of substance, but I need to keep it low key. Frustrating, beyond all belief. More people should be like me.

Here is my menu, with a few alterations to be made within the process of cooking it:

• Chilled Velvet Corn Soup
• French Bread Crostini with Sun Dried Tomato Pesto
• Fingerling Potatoes with Chives and Parsley
• A Gigantic Garden Salad: walnuts, goat cheese, roasted cherry tomatoes, a light vinaigrette, etc.
  
• Blackberry Crumble Bars

Essentially, I'm wasting my time by posting this and not cooking. But it'll all get done, I imagine. I just hope people other than me like it.

She's a Rejecter

Last weekend I tried to make a cold soup. It wasn't just any cold soup - it was a raw soup. I find the idea of eating "raw" to be intriguing, and possibly enjoyable. When I was a vegan, I felt a lot better after I finished a meal. Also, I thought "If Gwenyth Paltrow can do it, so can I!"

Raw soup is probably code for "baby food." It was butternut squash, apples, tahini, and a few spices. I chopped them, blended them, and even added cold cucumber for some 'crunch' in my presentation. And I still had baby food.

But I love the idea of cold soups! I have trouble finding acceptable cold soup. Riddle's has a strawberry cold soup that tastes like melted strawberry yogurt. My favorite tapas restaurant here in Charlotte, Las Ramblas, has a gazpacho with great taste - just too much like salsa, and not enough "cold soup."

This morning I clicked on the NPR homepage to find, lo and behold, a special on cold soups. My favorite looking one is the velvety corn soup - it looks like it takes minutes. But! I read the corner tips on making cold soup - don't use a food processor. This was my mistake. Perhaps that's what gave my raw soup it's "baby food syndrome."

Then again, it could've been because it was raw soup. Just a thought.

I have a crush on David Lebovitz

Have you read David Lebovitz's blog? It's pretty much amazing. He's incredibly witty and easy to read, and everything that I make from his recipes turns out like heaven. I think I'm in love. He's also blogging from Paris which allows me to further romanticize him.

I also feel some sort of kinship with him when he spends a paragraph or so ranting about the way things are done in France. Anyone living in a foreign country ends up having more than a rant or two about the iniquities imposed on them by these bloody people they're living with. It's how we seem to deal with cultural difference.

I mean, you're totally surrounded by people who have different childhood references than you do, eat different things, speak differently, and often have different values. The frustration has to go somewhere, and so I also bitch occasionally. What to do?

However, when it comes to my favorite American in Paris' recipes, there is no complaining from anyone. I take this poor man's instructions and twist them to fit my meagre kitchen equipment and lack of experience, and still the end result is always wonderful.

I made his jam tart recipe as dessert for a friend's barbecue.





I used a glass pie dish (horrors!) of the wrong size, but it still turned out well, just stayed quite a while longer in the oven. It also wasn't quite as pretty as his, but I decided that my tart was "elegantly rustic" and it still managed to elicit a few oohs and aahs from half drunken twenty-something year olds.

As noted in his post, you can use just about any jam you want. I used an old jar of pumpkin butter from Trader Joe's. With a little vanilla icecream on top, it was amazing. I'm yet to try this with a fruitier jam, but I think it would work, probably a little like dressed up Nutri-Grain bars I'm thinking.

Just try it. It's really easy, and absolutely unscrewuppable. What more can you ask for?

Oxtail Stew and Macaroni Pie

Okay, I've been guilted. Now that Angie's already posted on the blog I made her join, I know that I need to contribute.

It's taken a while for me to decide on my first post. You see, I've been thinking about this blog thing for some time. I've been lurking on other blogs, tagging recipes on delicious, taking pictures of my food, and generally being an obsessive observer. This is what I do. I stare before I leap.

Finally, I've decided. I'm starting with a bang. Oxtail stew is on my top ten list of best things to put in one's mouth. It's a recipe from home. Oxtail and pig's tail are very commonly used in Trinidad, and I was puzzled to discover that many Americans think that eating an animal's tail is weird and somewhat gross. No one seems to understand that there is a perfect fat:muscle ratio, huge flavor, and the most satisfying marrow packed bone in the tail. That's fine, more oxtail for me.

In St Louis, finding oxtail is a bit of a challenge, but very much possible. There are two places you can get it, at the Soulard farmer's market and at Global Foods, which is in Kirkwood. This particular tail was bought at Global, bearing a tag that claimed it was never frozen. I don't know that I believed that little story, and I'm not sure what advantages that gives to a meat that I was going to stew for six hours, but it probably made somebody else feel better about their purchase.


In Trinidad, oxtail is usually cooked in a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers are much more difficult to find in St Louis than are oxtail. I don't own one, and can't help you find one. If you know of one, help a girl out. So, I've settled on the slow cooker. Although it uses a completely opposite method to the precious pressure cooker, it also comverts tough, sinewy meat to fall-off-the-bone deliciousness. Weird, huh? And, just in case you're not sure what fall-off-the-bone deliciousness looks like, I've included this handy photograph:

Before it goes into the slow cooker, the meat undergoes the quintessential Trinidadian treatment of being browned in sugar and oil. We brown all of our meat like this before stewing, and one day there will be a post on chicken getting on this action. Stewed chicken is very popular at home, very Trini. Don't be scared of the sugar treatment, it does wonderful things to the meat, and it will not be sweet as a result.


And the macaroni pie, well, that's just what Trinis call baked macaroni and cheese. We eat it quite frequently, as a side dish. Macaroni and cheese would be never be considered a full dinner in a Trini mother's house (my mother very much included). It's easy, it's good, and it's even better with some oxtail gravy over the top.

At home we get long sticks of macaroni that we use for this. I cannot find that pasta in St Louis. So, I use either elbow macaroni, or shells. This pie was made with shells, and I've really begun to like using them for this, as they just seem a touch more elegant. They're just prettier. And they hold cheese quite well.

Let's start the recipes,

Oxtail Stew

1-2 oxtails
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp canola or vegetable oil
5-6 sprigs of fresh thyme or 1.5 tsp dry thyme
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
6 tbsp of Trinidad green seasoning* or use your beef marinade of choice
salt and pepper
water

1. Place your oxtail pieces in a medium-sized bowl or container. Add garlic, green seasoning and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and allow to marinate overnight. If you're not using green seasoning, just marinate as you would usually any beef for stewing.

2. Now that the meat is ready, place a large pot over a medium fire. Put the oil in and allow it to heat up.

3. When the oil is hot, it's time to burn the sugar. Put the brown sugar in and stir. Allow it to melt completely, then let it bubble for a moment, and then darken slightly. However, don't let it go on too long, as if it burns you'll need to start all over. If it burns, it will be very dark and smell like burning. You'll know.

4. When the sugar is browned, add the meat. Toss the meat to coat, and allow it to sear.

5. Throw in the thyme sprigs. Toss.

6. Dump everything into a slow cooker and add water until the meat is covered. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set your cooker on low and in about six hours, you'll have perfect oxtail.

Macaroni Pie

3 cups uncooked pasta
3.5 - 4 cups grated white cheddar cheese
1- 1.5 cups milk
1 egg
4 tbsp butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp mustard*
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook pasta. Drain.

2. Toss butter with hot pasta. You can also butter the baking dish, but it's not completely necessary.

3. Mix in cheese, onion, mustard, salt, and pepper, but reserve some cheese to sprinkle over the top. Empty mixture into baking dish.

4. Beat egg and milk together. Pour over the pasta mixture. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top. (You can also sprinkle some breadcrumbs over the top if you'd like).

5. Bake at 375 degrees, for about 30 - 35 minutes, or just until the top is browned and the liquid milk is no longer visible.


*The mustard is my mother's thing. She swears that it makes you "taste the cheese more." I'm fuzzy on the reasoning behind this, but I like the end result, so I continue to add it.


Thanks for playing everyone. More to come soon.

Shanna

The Joy and Misery

Here I was thinking you people would've posted something by now. I am by no means a trendsetter, a revolutionary, or a mutineer. I pave no path, I do not enlighten, I share no wisdom or knowledge (well, expect for alphabetic principal and one-to-one correspondence, but that's with unappreciative five year olds). But goodness, y'all, someone has to start this.

For those of you who do not know, I'm towards the end of my embark on my first summer break as an "educator." I don't really say I teach much, I think I babysit more than anything. But either way, I trick myself into believing that I am somehow challenging the current education system and NCLB. I like to think the achievement gap is closing due to my expertise in teaching the months of the year to the Macarana, directional positions to the Cupid Shuffle, and the long vowel sound with a delightful poem involving a bossy 'E' that has a history of 'biting' the other vowels. In addition, I have honed my skills in "Red Light Green Light" and "I Spy with My Little Eye." I also play a mean game of Sight Word Bingo.

Despite my accomplishments, or my failures (which severely outnumber the prior), I hold a lot of stress. This rewarding position I have taken has actually left me feeling worthless and unappreciated - much more than the world of retail ever did. Administrators see me as a worthless faculty 'member;' parents see me as either a) an expert, b) a racist, self-esteem damaging idiot or c) a sweet chick they'd like to take out on a date; students see me as a multiracial (I'm still trying to figure that one out) old lady who shockingly knows exactly how to "Shoulder Up Side to Side."

And according to them, I eat really weird food. The daily question at lunch is "So, is that Chinese, or what?"

This brings us to my reason for cooking. Its the one thing I can do without critics or judges. Sure, some things aren't great. I have a list of failures. Here's my Top Five failures:

1. Yellow Curry - Summer 2006. I tried curry on my own, only to have Sean say "Uh, can I make a suggestion?" He slowly put his fork down, and stopped eating. As he went on with possible additions to improve the "flavor" of my mushy rice with gooey yellow sauce, I slowly cried, and cried, and cried. And then I told him to leave.
   
2. Vegan Ravioli - Summer 2008. It wasn't so much "vegan" as it was I had no cheese. I made an impulse purchase at the grocery store of won ton wrappers (which are not vegan, btdubs) and stuffed them with mushrooms, zucchini, and onion. They quickly fell apart in the boiling water, and I ate left overs for dinner. I think I saw this one coming, though.
   
3. Meringue - Spring 2008. The Pavlova recipe in the April edition of Food and Wine sure looked awesome. But somehow, after three attempts at making "soft peaks," I realized I was out of sugar, eggs, and patience. Once I discovered that my failed meringue had made it up on the ceiling (to which I STILL do not know how that happened), I called it a loss. My then roommate's weird family, on the other hand, actually ate my failed meringue. I guess that pleased someone.
4. "Polynesian Surprise" - Summer 2008. This isn't so much a failure as it is an oddity. My dear friend Alex was in the process of moving to Boston. He made effort to use up as much food as possible prior to moving. This lead to interesting meal choices. My favorite by far was a curried couscous with an array of things - artichokes, peas, dried cranberries, I think there were nuts involved - either way, it wasn't something you'd normally piece together. Each bite involved a new flavor. Nothing was consistent. It wasn't unenjoyable, by any means, just unpredictable. Alex finished the meal by saying "In a week, you're going to wish you could have Polynesian Surprise again, but you won't be able to recreate it, because you won't be able to remember which flavor was most prominent - there are just too many." And by golly, he was right.
   
5. French Bread - Too Often to Count. I have had dreams for years of being self-sufficient when it comes to bread. I envision myself sifting flour, kneading dough, and creating beautiful scores into dough. I'd picture myself opening the door to company, saying "Oh that smell, why yes, it IS a baguette. I do fancy myself quite the expert in French peasant cuisine!" But alas, I fail time and time again. The last failed loaf left me hopeless. My only comfort came from my grandfather, a true artisan baker, who said "I spent the last 15 years trying to make the perfect baguette at home. I designed and built a kitchen solely for my baking attempts. And I have made countless loaves. And I still fail. Every time."

It seems as of late that I fail, or come up short, at every new recipe I try. When Shanna introduced the idea of a blog to me, I was ecstatic, energized to introduce everyone I knew to a new recipe or two that I had perfected over the summer. But, here I am, with nothing new. My nights consist to making farmer's market salads, various pasta dishes, and the occasional fried food (I must admit, moving to the South has sparked a "fry bug" in me. I will share these recipes in future posts - get ready). I use to cook for all those around me - Evan, Alex, Jarred, Melvinn, etc. But there's no one here in Charlotte. People have moved, or spent the summer at least 1000 miles away. I've had no drive for perfection - maybe this is the key to my summertime failures. The least I can do is provide you with a standby recipe of mine.

A couple of years ago I stumbled across Jane Brody's Good Food Book - Living the High-Carbohydrate Way. Perfect for me, absolutely perfect. Any woman who suggests eating a lot of chickpeas and pasta is a goddess in my eyes. I bought it immediately and began to read (yes, you can read it like a book). In it she has a recipe entitled "Spinach and Cheese Noodles." Its like nothing you've ever had - so simple, so easy, and so good. Its my staple for lonely nights of me + npr + wine + a good book. I don't make it too often, mostly because it'd spoil its specialness to me. However, I've never, ever made it for anyone else. I figured now would be the perfect time to share one of my favorites. It really holds a "Loop-ness" to me. I first made it in my 6273 Delmar apartment, and loved it since. It makes me think, even on the worst days of teaching, that I still hold that kid in me, who pretended to be a grown up, far too cool for everyone else in the surrounding area. I don't have to change the world, or please everyone. I can just be me.


Spinach Cheese Noodles

• 8 oz noodles (I prefer a light noodle, like angel hair)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 lb fresh spinach, blanched and chopped (or you can cheat with 10 oz of frozen spinach, thawed)
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 1 cup cottage cheese (I know, people think its gross, but it's so good)
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• S & P

1. Cook your noodles however you please. Drain 'em.
2. In a warm pan, use your oil to saute the garlic. Add spinach once garlic begins to brown. Saute until spinach begins to wilt.
3. Add the basil, parsley, crushed red pepper flakes, and cottage cheese. Cook over a low heat. The cottage cheese will begin to separate from the water in it - just leave it on the stove for a few minutes. This is totally normal.
4. After the cheese melts, add noodles. Leave over heat for a minute more, then remove and top with Parmesan. Serve immediately.

Basic Frittata

Frittatas are a staple at our place. They're ridiculously easy, and you can throw any combination of flavors at them. When vegetables start to look a little doubtful, this is where they end up. For every recipe I meant to try, but didn't, there's a frittata.

Did I mention that they can be pretty cheap too? The boyfriend and I are grad students. We have little to no money at any given time. We can't always afford protein in the form of actual meat. But, eggs do nicely, and this baby can be served at dinner if necessary.

This particular frittata was of our standard variety, all veggies with a little cheese over the top. This is the cheap kind. However, I've given the frittata the royal treatment in the past, adding prosciutto, asparagus, and/or goat cheese. It dresses the meal up, and suddenly you can serve it to guests and produce lots of impressed little faces. I highly recommend one for brunch potlucks, it transports easily, and is one of the few egg dishes that doesn't have to be piping hot to be good.

All you need is a frying pan that can be put in the oven (not the ones with plastic handles) or a cast iron pan. It's basically a variation on an omlette that begins on the stovetop and ends in the oven, so you'll need your cooking implement to be a little versatile. Personally, I wouldn't have mine any other way...

Frittata

4-5 eggs

1/4 cup milk

2 tbsp olive or canola oil

About two cups of your favorite veggies, roughly chopped

Strips of ham, turkey, prosciutto or any other deli meat (optional)

About 1/2 cup of your favorite cheese(s), grated

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F

2. Beat eggs and milk together in a large bowl. Season egg mixture with salt and pepper.

3. Saute vegetables in oil over medium flame, until cooked through. Add meat and toss, if using meat.

4. Pour egg mixture over veggies and turn flame down slightly.

5. Allow eggs to cook for five to ten minutes. When edges are done and eggs seem to be setting, sprinkle cheese over the top and transfer to oven.

6. Let the frittata bake for another five to ten minutes. When the top is just beginning to brown, it's done.

7. Slice into wedges like a pizza and enjoy.